


Even If It Took Forever and More

by burymeinziam



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:27:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28074696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burymeinziam/pseuds/burymeinziam
Summary: They spend a month together in a cabin.
Relationships: Zayn Malik/Liam Payne
Kudos: 18





	Even If It Took Forever and More

They spend a month out of the summer tucked away in a cabin near a lake where they get lost in each other’s skin. It’s only for a month and they know it’s only temporary because nothing truly beautiful ever lasts, but Liam loves the sharp angles of Zayn’s jaw and the way his eyes look in the early hours of the morning when the sun is just barely peeking through the thin fabric of the curtains so a month is better than nothing at all. 

He rents the cabin without thinking, doesn’t tell anybody at all when he does it. Everyone else is away working or spending their free time with family and Liam is all too aware of the fact that Zayn would spend his entire vacation holed up in his apartment if he were given the opportunity to do so. He rents the cabin on impulse because he knows if he doesn’t he probably wouldn’t ever do it and Liam wants this despite all of the reasons he shouldn’t. 

And when he asks him one night over the phone, Zayn exhales and Liam’s breath catches in his throat and he’s sure he’ll forget how to breathe all together if Zayn says no. 

“Yeah. Okay,” Zayn says and Liam can hear the barely-there smile in his voice (the one he saves for when Liam gets sappy and sentimental and Zayn can’t help but to love him impossibly more than he already does). 

“Great.” Liam smiles back even though Zayn can’t see him, but he’s sure Zayn knows it’s there and that’s really all there is to it. 

The cabin is small and cozy and nestled away between trees and bushes and tall grass that Zayn thinks would make his skin itch if he hung around in it for too long, but there’s also a lake and a small boat that Liam thinks they should take it out one day while they’re there. Liam can tell Zayn is nervous or wary because he doesn’t usually do this sort of thing. This escaping reality with his sort-of-but-not-really boyfriend to spend a month in the middle of nowhere with not much more than the moon and the stars to guide him home sort of thing. But Liam knows it’s okay because it’s them and only them and that’s all they need. 

“What do you think?” Liam asks once they pull up to the cabin.

Zayn shrugs his shoulders and steals a glance at Liam from where he’s sitting in the passenger’s seat of the car. “It’s nice. But I’m not really here for the cabin.”

Liam raises his brows. “Oh? What are you here for, then?”

Zayn unbuckles his seatbelt before climbing out of the car. He leans into the open door, looking at Liam as though he should already know. “You.”

It’s simple. It’s beautiful. And it’s finite. 

They turn off their cell phones, except for the moments when they check messages from home, and they spend all their time with each other. They sit out on the deck and drink coffee and tell each other all of the things they never get the chance to say back home. They talk about what they might have done if the band hadn’t gotten so big. If they’d never auditioned for X-Factor. If they’d never met each other at all. 

“If it wasn’t then, it would have been some other time,” Liam says. “I think We were always meant to know each other.”

Zayn lights a cigarette, takes a drag, and then exhales opposite Liam because he knows how much he hates the smell. He doesn’t actually respond so much as he hums in agreement. 

“We would have met eventually,” Liam continues staring off into the woods. “Some things are just meant to be. Not everything, but some things, and I think you and I are one of those things.”

When Liam looks back ay Zayn his smile is soft and his eyes are warm when he flicks the ash off the end of his cigarette. “However it happened or would have happened, Li, I’m just glad it did,” Zayn says. “I’d hate to live in a world without me and you in it.”

They an afternoon on the lake in a little boat Liam thinks would have been good for fishing if they’d thought to bring poles.

“I can’t believe I didn’t think to buy fishing poles.”

Zayn’s laugh is fond and loving when he reaches forward, combing his fingers through Liam’s hair because it’s really not that big of a deal. He’d be happy lounging in that stupid boat, no poles or oars or anything at all, as long as he got to do it with Liam. 

“I don’t even think there’s fish in this lake, Li,” Zayn tells him. 

Liam pouts, leans over to rest his head on Zayn’s shoulder. “There might be…” 

Liam knows Zayn is right and that he’s being a little bit mopey, but the conversation with Zayn is easy and simple and when he really thinks about it, while all the fishing he could have done while watching Zayn fumble around with his pole would have been fun, floating along the river and baking under the sun with Zayn is just as nice. 

“Next time,” Zayn says, pulling Liam closer into his side.

“You’re just glad you don’t have to mess around with the pole.” Liam teases, poking Zayn’s side. 

Zayn grins, squeezes Liam’s hip. “Why mess around with that pole when I could just mess around with yours?”

There’s a small fire pit behind the cabin and one night Zayn is feeling a little adventurous and decides that roasting marshmallows over an open fire isn’t such a bad idea. It’s one of the few things he enjoys about “the great outdoors” as Liam has taken to calling it during their month-long vacation. Zayn also thinks that spending the night curled up in a blanket under the stars with Liam isn’t anything to complain about either. 

It’s not until the fire is about to die out and it’s close to being pitch black and Zayn can only really see Liam if he squints and pieces the parts of his face he can remember most together that he says it; speaks the words they’ve both been feeling but were never quite brave enough to say out loud. 

“I love you, you know,” Zayn says softly. “Through everything.”

Liam nods, tightens his grip on the blanket wrapped around their shoulders. “I know,” he says. “I love you, too.”

There’s a short pause. A moment when all either of them can hear are the crickets chirping in the woods behind them until Liam sighs and breaks the silent with a whisper. 

“I wish it could be like this forever,” he says. “Simple, you know? Just you and me.”

Zayn scoots in a little closer, turns to the side so he can lean in and rest their foreheads together in a sudden urge to feel close and breathe Liam in while he still can because he may not really have the chance to once this is all over. 

“Me too,” he says with a sigh. “But some things aren’t so simple.”

There’s disappointment in Zayn’s words and even more in the slump of Liam’s shoulders. Things should be simple and easy. Loving one another shouldn’t be so complicated and hard. But things are never easy when you add music and girlfriends and fame into the mix. Things get messy when you love one person but feel tethered to another in a way that can’t really be put into words. 

He can’t say it out loud so Zayn tells Liam when he kisses him under the stars, the blanket falling from their shoulders, forgotten, when it hits the grass. Its clear and Zayn feels as though he can breathe a little easier as long as Liam is there to remind him how. 

Liam knows Zayn gets it when his hands slide beneath the fabric of his sweater and his fingers feel both warm and cold against the skin of Zayn’s back. It’s the give and take of their lips working together that lets Zayn know just how hard to tug on Liam’s bottom lip to illicit the small groan that’s been caught in the back of his throat. 

In that moment it’s simple, Liam knowing that while Zayn prefers a bed and the soft pillow-like surface of a mattress, tonight he’s content with thick blankets and trees and the soft outline of Liam’s body in the moonlight as he hovers over Zayn beneath the stars.

There are no words for clothes left discarded a few feet away from a dying fire and forgotten marshmallows that will probably be forgotten until morning. And when Liam feels a brief pang of worry because he’s not sure spit will be enough, Zayn tells him that it is (“I trust you…”) and they don’t need to go inside, well, there aren’t really words for that feeling either. 

It’s just Zayn feeling full and surrounded and whole even though it hurts like hell and the drag of Liam’s cock isn’t as smooth as it usually is. It’s not quite easy, not in the least, but it’s perfect all the same. 

It’s a kiss to Zayn’s shoulder and Liam saying “I love you most.”

It’s Zayn holding Liam close, kissing him slow and simple and breathing “Me too” into Liam’s mouth. 

It’s simple and it’s messy. It’s them.

After a while, the days begin to blur together. They spend afternoons lying together in the grass, Liam’s head pillowed against Zayn’s chest while Zayn reads aloud from whichever book he felt like opening that day. 

They cook dinner together. Most of it ends up burnt and nearly inedible, but the time spent goofing around in the kitchen laughing and stealing kisses every few minutes is worth the less than tolerable food. 

Some of the best nights are spent cuddled together on the couch and watching movies on Liam’s laptop. Sometimes Zayn will quote the lines he remembers from his favorites and Liam will laugh and shove him in the side before telling him he’s talking too much even though they both know he loves all of Zayn’s impressions. 

They make love into the early hours of the morning before falling asleep tangled up in each other, the sheets pooling around their waists and wrapped around their ankles.  
It’s all a blur, a beautiful mix of inseparable moments they wish they could get lost in forever. 

“I wish we could stay,” Zayn says one evening, his face pensive and a little nervous as his fingers dance over the skin of Liam’s naked back. He feels sated and content with Liam wrapped all around him, but the impending end of their vacation makes his chest feel tight and uncomfortable. 

Liam doesn’t answer right away and Zayn doesn’t really expect him to because there’s nothing to say. Nothing positive anyways. It’s a suggestion that doesn’t really have a hope in being fulfilled. It’s something they both want but can’t have. Not yet. 

“Me too,” Liam says, tracing the heart on Zayn’s hip. “I wish a lot of things, but I wish for you the most.”

“Thank you,” Zayn says when they’re in the car, Liam in the driver’s seat and Zayn in the passenger’s wearing his sunglasses while one hand dangles out the open window. There’s an air of sadness and nostalgia for something that once was and could have still been under different circumstances. Zayn’s eyes are trained on the tiny cabin and those two words are all that really need to be said as Liam nods his head before starting the car and backing out onto the dirt road that leads out to the highway. 

The drive back is quiet, but the air is heavy and filled with words that will probably always remain unspoken, memories they’ll keep tucked away in the deepest parts of themselves only to be uncovered when it’s just Zayn and Liam and maybe the soft light of the moon peeking through an open window. And even then, the memories will only be shared in hushed whispers, and stolen kisses that won’t be acknowledged come morning. 

It’s over, but not really because even though they’re leaving the tiny cabin tucked away in the middle of nowhere they still have now and then and all of the moments in between. They have this one month out of the summer when they only belonged to each other and life was simple. If only for a little while. 

They have memories of tiny boats floating along still eater, burnt dinners and quiet conversations in the grass that made Zayn’s skin itch. Memories of making love under the stars and silent promises of “mosts” and “always."

And when Liam’s hand finds Zayn’s over the center console of the car it’s a promise. A promise that one day, maybe in this life or the next, they’ll find that simplicity and ease that only seems to come when it’s them and them alone.

A promise that they’ll get there. Even if it takes forever and more.


End file.
